1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an input and output control system which can control peripheral devices having the same category but different control procedures without providing special-purpose BIOSs (basic input and output system programs).
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, along with the development of semiconductor techniques, very inexpensive LSIs such as microprocessors, memories, peripheral controllers, and the like are available. These LSIs are combined according to applications, and a standard OS (Operating System Program) or a commercially available application program is loaded, thus constituting a relatively high-performance computer system. A typical computer system of this type is a personal computer.
In the field of personal computers, hard disk devices (HDDs) are increasingly adapted as standard equipment. For a hard disk controller (HDC) for controlling the HDD, two international standard architectures are known. The first type of HDC has a 16-bit data bus width (to be referred to as a 16-bit interface HDC hereinafter). The second type of HDC has an 8-bit data bus width (to be referred to as an 8-bit interface HDC hereinafter).
Since these two HDCs do not simultaneously exist on a single system, a basic input and output system program (BIOS) is programmed to control one of these HDCs.
However, it is not preferable from a general purpose viewpoint that two types of BIOSs exist for controlling two different types of HDCs. Therefore, a demand has arisen for a general purpose input and output control system which can control a plurality of peripheral devices having the same category but different control procedures without providing special-purpose BIOSs.